Ceva Animal Health has shown its support for struggling farmers by injecting £15,427 into the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (R.A.B.I.), RSABI in Scotland and National Sheep Association (NSA) in Northern Ireland. These charities are providing vital help for financially compromised farmers across the UK.

The farming community has faced exceptionally arduous conditions over the past 18 months, with extremes of weather taking their toll on both arable and livestock farmers. The knock-on increase in feed costs, together with persistent animal disease challenges throughout the period have culminated in significant losses of stock and revenue.

As a result, calls to the R.A.B.I.’s helpline (0300 303 7373) have risen steeply this year and in the first six months of 2013 it took just under 600 calls – around as many as in the whole of 2012. The number of working farmers seeking help has tripled in the past year and three times as much money (£550,000) has been given to this group in the first nine months of 2013 compared with the same period last year. This is in addition to the £1.1m R.A.B.I. has given so far this year to farmers and farmworkers who can no longer work through age or disability.

Dairy farmer Peter Jackson (not his real name) is used to life being tough, but 2012/2013 took him to the edge. He said: “Things have been difficult for years, yet we managed to survive, but last year’s weather was relentless. The fields were waterlogged so we had to bring the cows inside in the summer and buy extra feed, and while it used to cost £188 a ton, it rose to £249, yet the price we got for the milk was the same. The rain also ruined what we were growing to feed the cows over winter, and we had to buy in even more.”

Another family wrote to thank the R.A.B.I. for the help they received. They said: “We are hoping that the weather and problems we’ve had over the last year will start to ease. Without family, friends and your help we would have struggled more than I can imagine. We are still not out of the woods, but we are slowly seeing the trees.”

Ceva donated £1 per bottle sold of their popular Cevolution™ range to the farming charities over the past four months. Ceva’s Managing Director Alan Doyle explains: “Donating through R.A.B.I., RSABI and the NSA in this way is the most practical method we can think of to show our solidarity for some of the UK’s most compromised farmers.”

Paul Burrows, Chief Executive of R.A.B.I. said: “We are very grateful for Ceva’s tremendous support, which will help us to respond to the rising number of people contacting us.

“Farming has a bright future, but not everyone can take advantage of the opportunities available and anyone can be hit by unexpected events. We support families, not businesses, and in the last year have paid for things like funeral costs, utilities and council tax arrears. We have also given emergency cash to people waiting for state benefits, paid for clothing, and supplied food vouchers.

“It is thanks to donations from the public and organisations like Ceva that we are able to help and lives can be turned around.”